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Rita Wilson and her husband Tom Hanks were the first celebrities to reveal they tested positive for the coronavirus last month. Now, the singer and actress has opened up in greater detail about the couple’s symptoms and their experience with the controversial drug chloroquine.
Wilson, 60, conducted her first interview post-coronavirus on Tuesday morning’s episode of CBS’ “The Talk” with Gayle King.
The singer, whose rendition of Naughty By Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray” recently went viral, shared exactly how she was feeling as she and Hanks, 60, battled the novel virus in quarantine in Australia.
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Rita Wilson and Tom Hanks announced in March that they tested positive for the coronavirus.
(Kevin Mazur/Getty)
“I was very tired. I felt extremely achy,” Wilson detailed her symptoms to King. “Uncomfortable, didn’t want to be touched and then the fever started. Chills like I’ve never had before. Looking back, I realize I was also losing my sense of taste and smell which I didn’t realize at the time.”
Wilson shared her fever reached its highest temperature about nine days following her positive test results.
“I think it got close to 102,” she said.
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The actress revealed she was given chloroquine, a drug that has been used to prevent and treat malaria that is being studied as a possible COVID-19 treatment.
She said her fever subsided after taking chloroquine, but she’s not sure if it’s the reason it went away.
“I can only tell you that I don’t know if the drug worked or if it was just time for my fever to break, but my fever did break,” she explained. “But the chloroquine had extreme side effects.”
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After being treated with chloroquine, Wilson shared she felt “completely nauseous” and suffered from vertigo.
“I could not walk,” she said. “My muscles felt very weak.”
“I think people have to be very considerate about that drug,” the star added. “We don’t really know if it’s helpful in this case.”
As for her famous husband, Wilson admitted Hanks experienced “milder symptoms.”
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“He didn’t have as high of a fever. He did not lose his sense of taste or smell, but it still took us the same time to get through it,” she added.
The couple reportedly spent five days in a Queensland, Australia, hospital before remaining in isolation for weeks. Following their recovery, the duo was spotted for the first time at their Los Angeles home in late March.
Wilson confirmed that while she and Hanks still do not know for sure where or from whom they contracted the virus, they’ve learned they were both exposed to it “at the same time.”
Hanks and Wilson were in Australia when their tests for the novel virus came back positive. Hanks had been in the land down under filming an upcoming Elvis biopic before director Baz Luhrmann suspended filming.
“All I can say is all of our close contacts, family, our work team, no one has tested positive,” Wilson added.
The couple has since donated their blood to be used for a study to see if their antibodies will be helpful in developing a coronavirus vaccine.
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The blood samples should also reveal whether or not their plasma can be used as donations to others battling the coronavirus, Wilson said.
Amid recovery, Wilson leaned on the therapy of music to help keep her spirits lifted. In addition to creating her own clever quarantine playlist called “Quarantunes” on Spotify, the singer also stunned fans when she rapped every lyric to rap group Naughty By Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray.”
Wilson’s rap was so well received that she has since teamed up with the hip hop group to create a remix to the song. Every stream of it will raise money that will be distributed into the MusiCares COVID-19 relief fund, she said.
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“I think that music is healing and so if something is giving someone comfort or peace, I’m thankful to be a part of it, really,” Wilson said.
Hanks’ wife has released four albums to date and continues to share clips of her latest music with fans on Instagram.
